Ask HN: Why 17?

If I ask an LLM to pick a number between 1 and 30, it always picks 17. Tried with multiple models. Why 17?

Probably because it’s trained by humans and humans are more likely to choose certain numbers when they’re asked to choose randomly. 7 is a popular choice

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-often-pick-17-as-a-rando...

lucky number

The model selects answers based on learned probabilities; for this type of question, the probability associated with "17" is relatively high, which is why it appears frequently.